The Milky Way, from Mount Tamalpais
A blanket of fog covering the cities made for the perfect opportunity to see the stars. Such a chance is all too rare in as populated an area as this!
unranged
by Kevin MacLeod
San Francisco Bay Area, from Mount Tamalpais
The fog this morning was really amazing. I spent about a half hour in the Marin Headlands trying to capture it (I’ll upload something from that soon), but eventually decided that I needed to get on top of the scene instead. Mount Tamalpais will always suffice for that.
If the clouds are still good, perhaps I’ll try to make it back for the sunset!
Moonrise over the Marin Headlands
This is the site of one of the first good photographs I’ve ever taken. I’ve resisted the temptation to re-shoot my old picture, prefering to wait until I had something new to say. This scene was worth it.
The technique, equipment, and processing were completely different this time around. In the past, I was struggling hard to work around weaker equipment - HDR to compensate for the camera’s low dynamic range, panorama to compensate for a smaller sensor size.
This one was shot with the D800E and the Samyang 14mm, manually exposure-fused, cropped, and processed using mostly Photoshop’s RAW editor.
Fireworks and a full moon over San Francisco
After shooting previous shots around the Point Bonita Lighthouse, I figured I might as well hit Hawk Hill before calling it a night. I’m glad I did, since I was just in time for a fireworks display!
I sat in the same place shooting the same shot for quite a while to wind up with this finished picture. Multiple exposures were blended together both to smooth out the water and enhance the fireworks.
Full moon over San Francisco
I spent the the early portion of the evening looking for a good vantange point from which to photograph the full moon. I definitely wasn’t the only one with that idea - the Marin Headlands was full with photographers, to the point that parking was difficult!
This particular shot was taken on the narrow road on the way to the Point Bonita Lighthouse. The lighthouse itself was teeming with photographers, and I also ran into a few on the way back, but I was the only one shooting from this particular spot at this particular time. I think I managed to compose something interesting.
I got this shot by cropping the center of my Samyang 14mm, because I forgot to pack a 20mm. It’s a killer lens though, and this is still very sharp.
Long exposure of the setting moon
This was taken the same night this shot was, about an hour earlier. These shots were my first real experience doing long exposure night shots, and the first time I made a real effort to capture the stars.
Looking down on a forested hillside enveloped by fog
This was taken on the road up Mt. Tamalpais. The entire mountain was engulfed in fog all around, and once I finally managed to burst through the clouds, it made for a great opportunity to take a shot. I will probably post some shots from the summit over the next few days.
I also want to start getting in to black and white photography. It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything in this field - partly because they seem to be less popular than my colorful landscape stuff - but I don’t want the work I create to be dependant on meaningless viewer metrics. I’ve always felt its important to create the art you want to create, and I’m going to keep doing that.
I’ve probably spent too much time talking about lens sharpness lately. Although I do enjoy digging into the nitty gritty technical details of these lenses on a pixel-per-pixel level - and I’ll continue to do so - I have to admit that it just isn’t particularly important. The fact is, pretty much any lens is going to be pretty sharp on a modern camera. Case in point, this shot, taken with the Nikkor 28mm-80mm 1:3.3-5.6G.
